Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries

Re:Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries by sylware on Saturday April 23, 2022 @08:02AM (#31133519)

There is also something about "fast-neutron"/"slow-neutron" (I don't recall which one) capture based fission reactors which could give a purpose to a significant part of nuclear waste. If I understood not too badly (but I expect to be very wrong), only China and Russia have such nuclear reactors. In my country, the public research project was cancelled without being able to do the same than China and Russia. I heard that with such reactors, it extends by hundreds of years, if not thousands, the ability of fission reactors to produce "enough" energy, that based on current fuel reserve estimation.

ofc, reducing energy consumption (= reduce worldwide population, reduce heating/AC, stop commuting ...) and switching as much as possible to "stored" "renewable" energy should always be a primary focus (even if nuclear fusion becomes real).

wow, so many "if" and "I don't really know". :(

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Re:Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries by natmaka on Saturday April 23, 2022 @10:04PM (#31140622)

Breeder reactors research was quite huge (one of the first breeder was built in the US in 1951).

To this day there is no such reactor working industrially satisfactorily.

This architecture has been, for all practical purposes, abandoned by nearly all countries that were researching and developing it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Future_plants

One of the most (if not the most) ambitious project was Superphénix, costed billions and failed flat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix

The most successful was Russia's BN-800 but "problems ((...)) indicated a redesign was needed", and construction of it's successor (the BN-1200) was put on indefinite hold. Problems related to cost and process/security seem quite difficult(?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor

Russians are back to the drawing board. The sole officially actively pursued (since 2021) pertinent design, BREST-OD-300 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREST_(reactor) ) will only (when completed, if ever) be a demonstrator (low power).

French ahead: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surg%C3%A9n%C3%A9ration

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Re:Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries by sylware on Sunday April 24, 2022 @11:21AM (#31144865)

It seems there is a difference between "fast-neutron" reactors and breeder reactors: the article states that russian BN-600 and BN-800 are "fast-neutron" reactors but not in "breeder" mode.

Since I am garbage in nuclear physics, I am wondering if those "fast-neutron" reactors "but not breeders" can reuse a significant part of current nuclear waste?

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Re:Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries by natmaka on Monday April 25, 2022 @01:01AM (#31150888)

I'm not a specialist. If I understand correctly "breeder mode" depends upon fuel composition (which actinide/isotope, in which proportion...). Non 'fast-neutron' mode is dubbed 'thermal' and seems less interesting as it obtains less energy (however some fuel, such as thorium, may enhance its performance), however it has benefits (less difficult to design/build/exploit(?)).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal-neutron_reactor

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Re:Turning nuclear waste into diamond batteries by alex_young on Saturday April 23, 2022 @04:25PM (#31138151)

I believe the only way to do this is to create breeder reactors which have an obvious downside of producing nuclear weapons material as a byproduct.

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